thats what you get when you let your heart win
by ifandonlyif
Summary: Alicia and the girls finally stand their ground.


_Was anyone else annoyed at how easily Alicia and the girls forgave Massie after P.S. I Loathe You? It was like for once, Alicia wasn't trying to take over because she was greedy, she was trying to take over because she was right. I haven't read past Boys R Us, so this is like what would have happened if they stood their ground instead of what happened in that book. Part of the first section includes direct dialogue from P.S. I Loathe You. For Livvy cause she's awesome (and was your birthday recently? I feel like I remember writing you a birthday fic at some point last summer…) with the prompts_ _dark chocolate, red lips, dish network, and "it's not over". Enjoy!_

* * *

**in eighth grade, there was a fall out**

"Ready, okay!" Alicia Rivera chanted, ready to lead her new dance team-slash-cheerleading squad in her self-choreographed routine yet another time. As the song Live Your Life blasted from the speakers and each girl stepped forward onto her right foot and kicked out her left, preparing to barrel turn, they heard a knocking on the dance studio door. Alicia's heart sank to her stomach as she realized the voice yelling "Leeeeesh!" could belong to none other than Massie Block, the last person she needed to see right now. Hadn't she said she was busy studying?

Without an explanation, Alicia broke the routine and hurried over to the sound system, jabbing the power button and putting a finger to her lips to quiet the protesting girls. She _had _locked the door, right? Maybe they could just wait until Massie gave up and went away…

Alicia knew that was unrealistic; it was obvious that there were people in the studio, and Massie would not give up easily. Alicia just hoped her mother would be on her side and figure out that if the studio door was locked, maybe Massie shouldn't be let in. Her mother knew all about catfights, and she had to understand that there was a reason Massie wasn't invited to her cheer practice, right?

The very last thing she expected was to hear a key jiggling in the lock. Her pulse quickened and she dove behind the group of girls, fearing the worst. It came.

"Sur-PRISE!" Massie yelled, throwing the door open with her mega-watt grin on her face. It faded instantly though as she took in the situation in the dance studio: girls Massie had probably never seen before, all dressed in the ah-dorable matching uniforms Len had gotten Ralph to design for her.

The girls let out protests upon seeing the girl the whole school had nicknamed "The Curse", and Alicia faced the fact that she had to do _something_. Plastering on her best shocked face, which wasn't too hard to do, given the circumstances (for example, why in the world did Massie have a key to her dance studio?), she stepped forward.

"Um… what are you DOING here?" she asked, then squeezed her eyes shut and prayed she'd disappear as the girls explained the obvious to Massie, that they were part of a new cheer squad.

Knowing she was right in this situation-Massie couldn't _really_ believe she was better at dance and cheer, could she?- Alicia decided to give up a little pride and allow Massie a spot on the team. She just needed to be clear from the get-go…

"You can totally join if you want," she offered, "I'd love to have you. It's just that… I'm sort of already the alpha." She forced herself to hold Massie's gaze, but Massie just looked back, like she couldn't process what Alicia was saying, so she plowed ahead. "I don't mean the alpha in life. Just in dance. You can totally still be the alpha in life. I mean, I _want _you to be. It's just that I'm so into dancing and I would really like to try choreography." Once the words left her mouth, she paused and realized she truly meant it. There was no denying that Massie was a better life alpha. Alicia just wanted her due credit for being better at dance. In a last-ditch effort to remain friends, she stumbled on with an offer for co-captain. Massie predictably turned it down, but she did it in a much more sad and broken way than Alicia ever would have expected. She was even glad that Massie threw in one of her trademark insults at the end, making her feel less bad about the fact that Massie seemed genuinely upset. While Alicia felt a tiny sense of guilt, she knew it wasn't her fault that Massie had built herself up so much in her own head that she really thought she should be the best at everything.

When Alicia took a deep breath and turned back to face her girls, she was met with scowls. "Oh, I only offered her a spot because I knew she'd turn it down," she assured them, not sure if it was true, but knowing it would do the trick. As expected they sighed, nodded, and giggled in relief before getting back to work. After all, they had a routine to perfect.

**freshman year, they were frenemies**

Alicia watched across the cafeteria as he leaned onto the back two legs of his chair and let out a chuckle, reaching one muscular and tan arm up to lightly adjust the navy Yankees cap on his head. A few strands of his brown-almost-black hair peeked out from underneath before it settled back perfectly into place. It was nearly the exact color of that 70% organic fair-trade dark chocolate her mom was always eating, the only sugar she ever put into her body because apparently it was also good for you. For some reason, something about that was comforting. Many times when she ran her fingers through that perfect dark hair, she couldn't help likening him to the only sweet thing she would allow herself to have. She let out a small sigh as his chair landed on all four legs again, and he and his soccer buddies got up to leave the lunchroom so they could get in a scrimmage before the bell. When she turned her attention back to her own table, she noticed Olivia, Dylan, and Kristen all fixated on her with amused looks.

"Everything alright with you and Hotz?" Dylan asked, eyebrows raised.

"Just peachy," Alicia winked and nodded enthusiastically, sending her friends into a fit of giggles. It wasn't her fault her boyfriend was so irresistible that she couldn't help staring at him all lunch. "But you wouldn't know, cause you're so wrapped up with Derrick," she teased back, making Dylan go bright red.

"Yea, well at least we're not as bad as Kristen and Dempsey," Dylan replied, citing their obsession with PDA.

"And at least I'm in a secure relationship," Kristen smirked at Olivia.

"Well hey, I've got Danny whenever I need a date for something, and otherwise…" she trailed off and wiggled her eyebrows playfully. Olivia wasn't quite a slut, but she sure had her fun charming guys with her devious good looks and witty personality. She and Danny were in an open relationship, just the way they both liked it. This always happened when one of them started taking jabs at the other's boyfriends. Alicia loved the banter, and thought it was a good measure of how close knit the four of them were. They may no longer have Massie to lead them, but they were happier off all being betas. Less pressure, more fun.

Speaking of, Massie and Claire chose that moment to stroll by. The duo was tighter than ever, and still ruling the freshman class. They flashed grins and waves at the table before heading to their own table about halfway across the cafeteria. Claire looked as genuine and innocent as always, but Alicia knew Massie only still was civil to them for popularity purposes. Even if they weren't even trying to be a threat to her alpha status, apparently Massie didn't want her public to know she and The Pretty Committee had had an ugly split as opposed to simply growing apart, as she would have people believe. They had even been invited to her Halloween party, which they were all surprised by, but decided not to go. It made Alicia a little sad, but more because of the person Massie had turned out to be than because they were no longer friends. She knew Dylan and Kristen could care less, wanting nothing to do with Massie after she called Dylan a Triple B and wouldn't accept the fact that Dempsey might like Kristen over her.

Dylan ignored their presence entirely and started a new conversation.

"So my aunt called this weekend," she stated, "apparently she's all tied up in a knot because the Dish Network is going to drop The Daily Grind next month. She's trying to convince my mom to upgrade her to DirecTV." Dylan loved telling stories about her mom's crazy younger sister. The less successful of the two, she loved to travel the world on Merri-Lee's dime and even her apartment was owned by the successful talk show host. She may not have been an entirely self sufficient and mature role model, but she usually was good for a couple interesting stories.

"Yea? What is Evelyn up to these days?" Olivia asked, intrigued.

"Well," Dylan started, launching into a captivating story about Evelyn and her new English boyfriend, Merri-Lee's disapproval of him and resulting threat to cut Evelyn off, but her disdain for any cable company that might not carry her famous show. Alicia leaned in like the rest of the girls and listened intently, thrilled by the gossip. She may have had her journalistic need filled by doing the morning announcements, but she could _always_ appreciate a good story.

**sophomore year, there was a revolution**

"GO TOMAHAWKS!" Kristen yelled at the top of her lungs. She was standing on the metal bleachers, ignoring the grumbling of the people who she was blocking in the row behind them. Alicia, Olivia and Dylan were still seated, but happy enough that the 'Hawks were winning, already by a significant amount. Each of their boyfriends had made some sort of significant contribution to the game, which always put the boys in good spirits afterward, so they were all excited for the afterparty.

Further down the bleachers but in the same row, Alicia noticed Claire standing and cheering as well. They locked eyes for a second and waved, before going back to focusing on the game.

"Why are you still nice to them?" Dylan asked, less in an annoyed way, but more like she was genuinely curious.

"I dunno," Alicia replied, thinking it over. "Claire's still nice to me, so that's fine, she's in my English class this semester. And Massie, well I guess I probably did more to hurt her in eighth grade than she did to hurt me, and she isn't outwardly mean or anything, so I see no need to instigate animosity that isn't there." Dylan gave her a look.

"You do know Massie is just lying in the weeds, right?" Alicia had absolutely no idea what Dylan was talking about, and conveyed it with a confused expression. Dylan sighed. "Remember back in seventh grade, when you switched the ballot boxes for the uniform design contest?" Alicia turned red, but nodded since Dylan didn't seem mad about it. "We all wanted to grab the mike on that stage and expose you to the audience. But Massie insisted we 'lie in the weeds' and then pounce when you least expected it."

Alicia was instantly brought back to the pain of the mural they had painted in the GLU Headquarters and the surprise when she found out they'd been planning to crash her modeling shoot. And it suddenly made sense why Kristen and Dylan were still so wary of Massie after two years.

"Wow," she said, still a little stunned. Her eyes landed on the scoreboard that indicated ten minutes til halftime. "I gotta go round up the girls, but tell me more after half time. I never thought that she might still be resenting me for the Heart-Nets," Alicia was getting over her surprise and realizing that of course this is the type of behavior she should have expected from Massie. Dylan nodded, and Olivia flashed a good luck thumbs up as she got up to meet the rest of her dancers by the locker rooms. Kristen was still too busy yelling tips at the guys to notice.

In high school there was a dance team that performed halftime shows for all the sports, and as a sophomore Alicia had already been voted Captain. It felt good, and every time she led her team onto a field or court, she was reminded that she made the right decision by betraying Massie and striving to become the Alpha of Dance, a feat which she had accomplished rather easily.

She gave the girls a pep talk while they stretched, and then they waited behind the Tomahawk's goal for their music to start. She and Derrick exchanged a wave as the players left the field, and then the first beats of 3OH!3's Double Vision started pulsing through the huge sound system. The dancers burst onto the field and started wowing the crowd with a complex dance routine that Alicia herself had choreographed. By the end the crowd was on their feet, whooping and cheering at the gorgeous and talented girls who had struck a pose and were holding it through the applause. Alicia's smile was a mile wide. Even when she noticed Massie in the crowd looking more than pissy, her spirits couldn't be dampened. She just filed the information away for later. The girls all jumped to their feet and ran off the field waving, and they each came to tell Alicia how well they thought it went.

* * *

"WHOOOOOOOOOO! BOCD RULEEEEEES!" Derrick and Josh had stuck their heads out the moon roof of the limo and were celebrating their win in the loudest way possible. Alicia could remember a time when that would have been far too mortifying to handle, but now she just found it funny and almost cute as she cracked up with Dylan. Kristen and Dempsey were talking about the move he did before his second assist, and Olivia and Danny were gossiping about some girl in their Spanish class.

"Boys!" Alicia heard Dean say, rather loudly. When he didn't get a response, he rolled down the partition to the driver's seat and tried again. "Mr. Harrington and Mr. Hotz, my sincerest congratulations on your great win! But may I please request that you keep all body parts in the vehicle and lower your voice a couple of decibles? I'd really like to get you to this party promptly and in one piece." She knew Dean sounded kind of proper, and laughed at his attempt since he was never like that with just her. He was totally playing up the chauffer thing, since she rarely had this many friends in the limo at once. She saw him flash her a quick wink in the rear-view mirror as the boys dropped back into their seats, mumbling their "sorry"s.

"Thanks Dean, be a dear and turn on the radio back here?" She winked back at him and motioned for him to raise the partition.

"Your wish is my command, Ms. Rivera," he answered, doing what he was told.

"'Cause a part of me is dead and in the ground. This love is killing me, but you're the only one. It's not over-er," Daughtry crooned through the limo's sound system.

"Depressing," Kristen commented at the same moment that Josh exclaimed, "It's not over 'til its over!"

"Unless you're playing MSG," Danny snorted, earning a high-five from all the guys.

"Huh?" Dylan voiced Alicia's confusion.

"Baseball saying," Derrick explained, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, "means you can never be certain you've won or lost until the game is over. But we were ahead by so much at halftime, we knew we had tonight's game in the bag before it was over." Dylan just nodded and snuggled to be more comfortable under his arm. Alicia smiled to herself, knowing Dylan had probably stopped paying attention halfway through Derrick's explanation.

"Yup, 'snot over til its over." Josh repeated, following Derrick's example and draping his arm across Alicia's shoulders. She was content to cuddle there and smell his cologne until the chorus of the song came around again and jolted her up right.

"Dylan!" She said, looking back to pat a startled Josh's knee. "It's not over. Right? You need to finish telling me about…" she trailed off, knowing the last thing the guys wanted was to be dragged into their girl drama.

"Ohhhhhh, right," Dylan sat up a bit too. She shared glances with Olivia and Kristen, leading Alicia to believe they had discussed something while Alicia was gone during half time. "We'll tell you when we get there," she decided, and Alicia agreed that was probably best. Still, she sat in anticipation the rest of the short way to the house of the senior boys soccer captain. Josh joked with her a couple of times and she responded appropriately, but she was eager to hear whatever it was the girls had discussed. While she knew there was no mal intent, Alicia still didn't like being the only one not to know something.

* * *

"Remember how Glambition was started?" Dylan asked, spitting a cherry pit into the trash. Alicia laughed, remembering how red her lips had been stained. It also made her think of the Massie days, which brought her back to the present.

"Okay, no more beating around the bush," she fixed Dylan with a playful-warning look. Dylan sighed, grabbing a napkin and wiping her hands before tossing it and leaving the refreshments. They walked over to the couch where Kristen and Olivia were with older guys, talking soccer and flirting, respectively. Without needing an explanation, they politely excused themselves and the four girls headed out into the back yard.

"So what's up?" Alicia asked eagerly. She'd spent the first half hour of the party on Josh's arm, being introduced to some of his teammates and while that was pretty fun, her mind was still on this conversation.

"What's up is yesterday I heard that the snake is pouncing soon," Olivia divulged in a whisper, "I guess Saylene Homer heard Claire complaining to Layne about how unhappy Massie is lately, and its mostly because she sees more people following Alicia's fashion trends in the last month." Alicia would admit, rather proudly, that she'd started some cool trends recently. "And something about how she's planning to publicly embarrass us somehow, I guess she feels like more people want to be us or something." Olivia rolled her eyes, never having dealt with Massie's insane need to constantly be on top, to the point where it would ruin her relationships.

"Well, what do you think she'll do?" Alicia asked, unsure of how worried she should be.

"I mean, we have no way of knowing. But after seeing her face during your awesome dance routine, we started thinking that maybe… maybe whatever it is is going to happen tonight," Kristen replied.

"And you're just telling me this now?" Alicia exclaimed, getting nervous.

"What-ever," Dylan stated, clearly so over it all. "Massie is so childish and really thinks she's the center of the universe. I say just be extra aware in case we can prevent something, but if not we'll find a way to spin it and show how shallow she really is." She looked down at her nails, bored, and the other girls just gaped at her.

"You're right. We won't stoop to her level," Alicia agreed, having calmed down.

"Brilliant," was all Olivia said.

"You're right! This just may be our chance to expose her as the control freak she is," Kristen smiled, a devious grin spreading across her face. "Now I almost hope she _does_ do something. Then we can say, 'well Massie Block, it isn't over til its over' and make her look like a fool instead."

Alicia was a bit unsure about it all. Part of her wanted to believe Massie was at all capable of being mature, and was beyond the phase where she enjoyed making people's lives miserable. But on the other hand, Alicia knew it was more than likely that Massie would try to maintain her dominance in a catty way.

The girls went back inside and enjoyed the party, having decided to let any situation come to them. There was no need to create unnecessary drama. About forty five minutes later, while the four girls were chatting in a big group with their boyfriends and a couple other players and dancers, a girl Alicia had only ever seen in passing before tapped Alicia on the shoulder.

"Is it true that you cheated on Josh with Danny?" The girl asked. All three involved snorted. "Not a chance," Alicia replied, genuinely confused about what this girl thought she was doing. Josh wrapped her in a protective hug.

"Okay, well then is it true that Dylan gets lipo?" This time pretty much everyone in the circle glared.

"You _wish_ you had my body," Dylan commented, "but its purely the work of my mother's trainer, thank you."

"Well is Kristen homeless?" The girl tried again. By this time, everyone else in the room seemed to be paying attention. Kristen flushed an angry red.

"Uh excuse me but who are you and where are you getting these crazy stories?" Alicia demanded, jumping to her friend's defense.

"Isn't it obvious?" Dylan put her hands on her hips. The light went off in Alicia's head just as the girl shrugged.

"I guess Massie was wrong then…" she trailed off, looking confused. Olivia had an amused grin, and Kristen snorted.

"Oh my God really? This is so pathetic even for her. Listen," Kristen directed her next words at the unknown girl, "Massie's pretty much making up rumors that don't even have a grain of truth in them. I don't know why she feels the need to act so childish, but I guess you can go back and tell her that we really don't care, because we know the truth, and we know this is just an act of desperation." Kristen crossed her arms over her chest and waited for the girl to stutter out an apology and turn to do as she was told.

"What is her issue?" Olivia could not stop laughing. "That was like the lamest revenge ever! Start stupid rumors about us? " But Alicia knew Massie, and knew that there had to be more. That was just the beginning. Dylan and Kristen seemed to think the same thing, but the display had stirred up the room a little. Suddenly, everyone was discussing how Massie was no longer as in charge as she thought, and the whole alpha thing was getting old. This was high school, the time to have fun and not waste stewing over petty rivalries. Alicia figured if everyone else had noticed too, there was no way Massie was actually in control of anything anymore. A smile crept across her face as she realized that once Massie figured out she had no one else on her side, she'd give it up. Hopefully that girl had heard some of the comments about Massie on her was out and would report it. Alicia let herself feel bad for Massie's complete social downfall for about a minute before assuring herself that it was well deserved. At this point there was no need for a queen bee, and everyone else seemed to agree. Sharing a grin with her three best friends, Alicia allowed herself to enjoy the rest of the night, and eventually high school, with the knowledge that letting anyone else hold you back or tell you who to be could only end in unhappiness, and it always pays to be true to yourself.

* * *

_Wow that was pretty longwinded! Oops. Sorry I had about zero idea how to end it, and I also couldn't really think of a good revenge plan, so I hope that part isn't too too lame. Something about dark chocolate and red lips instantly made me think of Alicia and Josh, which is why they're sorta kinda the main couple. Anyway, thanks for the prompts Livvy and for encouraging me to write something. I hope everyone is having a nice summer!_

_Hug, Sky_


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